I used to fantasize about the day my kids would be old enough for me to wake them up.

This would be in sharp contrast to being awakened at 5 a.m. by a toddler who just had to tell Mommy at that moment, “I’m tired.”

Tired? I’ll show you tired, kid. Tired is hundreds of consecutive nights of interrupted sleep. Tired is not being able to close your eyes until everyone else in the house is asleep. Tired is being the mother of little kids.

Last week, however, I was again tired, thanks to a visit to the ER and its accompanying viruses. But this time, I didn’t have to wait for the kids to sleep for me to snooze. They’re not little anymore.

So I told my seventh grader, Nick, that I was going to go lie down. I asked him to remind his brother to keep it quiet when he got home.

“Okay, Mom,” he promised.

And then, when my head hit the pillow, he proceeded to practice the piano.

In the room under my bedroom.

Even though there’s a keyboard in the basement.

Which has a door that closes.

And is not located directly below my bed.

First he played scales. Then he tried to teach himself “Amazing Grace,” never quite finding the right note for saving a wretch “like me…ME…mmmmeeeee….me.”

When his brother came home, he shouted to him to “Keep it down! Mom’s sleeping,” before resuming his piano-playing, this time, appropriately enough, the blues.

His fingers went up the piano.

His fingers went down the piano.

While I thought of Bugs Bunny:

Keep it down! Mom’s sleeping!

I thought about yelling downstairs, but he wouldn’t hear me over the piano anyhow. Also, it would ruin my snoozey feeling.

So, while he played the blues, I had the blues, and then I gave up on my nap altogether. When I came downstairs, he was having a snack, no doubt hungry from all that piano playing.